I had totally ignored this group of dwarves when I leveled up Ambaa, choosing to breeze through a couple of quests in Searing Gorge and then move on to other areas. Ambaa grew to level 80, maxed out Enchanting (Tailoring and Cooking too), bought out the Enchant Weapon – Spellpower recipe for 3,000g and made a nice profit on that investment by selling the Scrolls to people leveling their caster alts.

Patch 4.01 came along after that, destroying this market. The Spellpower scrolls which were selling for as high as 800g at times, came down to 250. Intellect was the way to go on weapons. Which is when I found out about the Mighty Intellect enchant. This is now the best enchant for BoA items used by spell casters like Priests and Mages. The only problem with this recipe? It’s Bind on Pickup, sold only by the dwarves mentioned above and at Revered reputation too, at that.

I did quite a bit of research on Wowhead and as luck would have it, this research was done a week before the Pilgrim’s Bounty event and after Brewfest. Why are both events important? Well, the Bounty event gives you the Spirit of Sharing buff, which grants you a 10% increase to reputation gains for an hour. If you were lucky enough during Brewfest, you might have access to Direbrew’s Remote, which grants you instant access to the Grim Guzzler Inn, where Lokhtos Darkbargainer resides. I was lucky, I had the Remote. Just had to eat the food servings for the Sharing buff and I was ready to roll.

I bought stacks of Dark Iron Residue, Lava Cores, Fiery Cores and Dark Iron Ores and headed off to the Grim Guzzler Inn. I made a small mistake there as the Dark Iron Residue is accepted only by Master Smith Burninate, who is outside the dungeon and near the Searing Gorge Flight Path. Giving the Residues to him will get you from Friendly to Honored. Darkbargainer inside the Inn will accept all the others, which will help you proceed from Honored to Exalted in a matter of minutes, especially with the Spirit of Sharing buff. Hearth out and you are back in your home city, recipes in your bag. Ta-da! (You do need to get only to Revered to buy the Intellect recipe, but I thought I might as well go all the way since I was there anyway.)

I did buy my way to Exalted, but I’m hoping it will be worth the effort. Now for selling the Scrolls and – hopefully – raking in the moolah!

I did not do anything very significant in preparation for The Shattering, which is probably being applied to the servers as I type. I did not stockpile mats. I did not position my toons at appropriate (or inappropriate, for that matter) locations across Azeroth. I just set my main’s hearth to Orgrimmar and left it at that.

Not because I’m feeling blasé about the changes. On the contrary, I am looking forward to them. I want to experience the same sense of magic I felt when I created my first toon up on Durotar. The sense of wonder when I saw Darnassus. The Barrens. The excitement which I felt when I went through the Dark Portal and saw Outland for the first time. I’d love to live through all that again.

So, the first thing I am going to do tomorrow morning is to recreate that magic. I am going to re-roll my first ever toon, a Troll Hunter. I am going to equip him with a few BoA stuff to help him level and am going to discover Azeroth all over again. The new troll starting area would be a good place to begin all over again, even if it’s with an already existing race-class combination.

Let me add myself to the increasing list of bloggers concerned about Blizzard’s move to have real names show up on their forums. I always draw a fairly thick line between my online identity and my real self. Why? For one, I live in India, where gaming itself is seen as something which adolescent kids do and definitely not for married men fast approaching forty. Hell, I get weird looks when I browse the graphic novels section in bookstores out here and when I queue up for Pixar’s latest without my kids in tow. A grown man playing a computer game? I’ll be hung, drawn and quartered without a trial.

Not that I’ve made it terribly difficult to find out my personal details. However, why make it a simple Google search away? I don’t have any real life friends who play WoW. As far as I know, only a few thousand gamers from India are subscribed. Last I checked, 99% of them are 25 or below, with a totally different lifestyle and background. I can’t relate to them, they can’t relate to me.

I value my privacy. I have no complaints about my life, but I love the fact that I’m able to spend an hour a day in an online world, taking a break from it. Please keep it that way, Blizzard.

Alright, I’ve delayed this long enough. My initial plan to start at the very beginning, a very good place to start, didn’t quite work out. I would love to start talking about how to create an account and play WoW from India, but I will save that for a later, rainy day. Right now I’d rather blog about my experiences as I continue to play the game, this damn game I’ve been addicted to for over a year and a half now.

A year and a half. It’s been so long? And I have just one 80? Lol, noob!